It hasn't come up until now so I never mentioned it, but one of my Ikumi headcanons is that she has a Black American mother and she is therefore half-Black, half-Japanese in anything that I write. You'll see why this is relevant later.
Takumi and Ikumi grimaced to each other before both pointedly looking at the recipe card laid out in front of them. It was a rather spartan card, covered with the instructions for constructing a vegetable terrine with nine components, each with detailed notes on their vastly different preparations. With a partner, it wasn't the hardest recipe in the world to complete, but with an untrustworthy partner…
Ikumi made to trace a series of katakana with her finger on the paper before pausing, looking up at Takumi, and sighing. Instead, she circled the ingredients and jabbed towards the back of the room. It took him a second to interpret, but Takumi nodded and headed towards the piles of ingredients.
I suppose a girl who prided herself on knowing everything there is to know about meat might not be as confident with fresh vegetables.
Takumi poked around the provided vegetables, grimacing at the state of some of the cauliflower and pointedly avoiding the particularly discolored ones. Most of the ingredients laid out were in top condition, so he soon found himself back at their station. Ikumi had pots set up for the ingredients they had to boil or blanche, and she reached out immediately for the baby corn and okra Takumi held, brandishing a knife.
Takumi glared at her and held firm, shaking his head. Ikumi's hand tensed around her knife, her eyes flashing. He rolled his eyes, picked up the recipe card, and pointedly tapped on the second to last step, which read, "After the terrine is cool, slice into 1cm portions and serve."
A mild embarrassment flashed across Ikumi's face, replaced by a marked stubbornness as she crossed her arms, careful to avoid cutting herself. Takumi just shook his head and began washing their ingredients briskly while looking at the recipe in earnest, passing her the carrots and zucchinis to be quartered.
The style of terrine that Kojirō was asking for was foreign to Takumi. To his knowledge, terrines were typically thought of as common food, with layers constructed from whatever few ingredients a household had at the end of the week. He'd eaten his fair share of them after the trattoria closed, and the majority of them were cobbled together from whatever leftovers they had that day. The nine-layer terrine was an elevated version of that, meant to highlight some of the more popular vegetables of the season rather than make a complete meal out of scraps. Each layer required a different preparation, and all nine flavors had to be perfectly balanced with each other.
Ikumi impatiently tapped his shoulder and gestured wildly at the rest of the vegetables. Takumi sighed before just gesturing for her to start cooking whatever she wanted to. Her eyes widened for a second before narrowing as she picked up a summer squash from the pile and cut it down its length. Takumi rolled his eyes at her enthusiasm before glancing back at the recipe card and reaching for a knife to start dicing carrots with.
She stopped him again. When Takumi glared at her, she waved her knife in the air. The message there was simple enough: "Let me do the knifework."
Takumi held his hands up in surrender and took a step back. Satisfied, Ikumi grabbed the carrots and began quickly and neatly dicing them, pushing the prepared cubes into a pan that promptly went on the stovetop. Takumi took over there, pouring in a light amount of oil and throwing on the seasoning listed in the instructions.
"No, not like that," he heard someone hiss behind him. The sudden sound of a voice startled Takumi badly enough that his wooden spoon banged loudly on his pan. Ikumi gave the interrupter a scathing look before shoulder-checking Takumi and deliberately turning back to her own preparations.
"Expelled. Both of you."
"I didn't even say anything!" The other person's partner burst out. There was a slam of something metal on the counter. Takumi winced, but he didn't turn around, opting instead to focus on sauteing his carrots.
"Clearly, your judgment skills are far too low to survive in a kitchen if you can't even choose a partner capable of following directions," Kojirō growled. "Both of you, out of my sight."
Whatever other protests one of the students had died after some stutters, and the two of them walked out of the room. Ikumi and Takumi exchanged another look and just shrugged to each other before focusing back on their tasks, only taking short breaks to glance at the recipe card and adjust whatever they were working on. Soon, only the cauliflower had to be prepared before the terrine was constructed. Takumi left that to Ikumi, going to the back of the room to get a terrine to line.
When he returned, Ikumi turned to him with a grim look, the cauliflower still whole and raw in front of her. Takumi gave her a confused look.
She pushed the recipe card in front of him and tapped the neat instructions on how the cauliflower was to be prepared. He read over them again briefly: Break down to bite-sized florets. Arrange on tray and cook for approx. 5 minutes. Should be crumbly when removed. Set aside for assembly.
Takumi had no idea what Ikumi was trying to point out.
She noticed his confusion and audibly huffed. She snapped her fingers in front of his face before pretending to put the whole cauliflower on a tray and stick it in an oven, bookending her performance with a meaningful look. The procedure looked… weird, and not just because of how she acted. After a couple of seconds of mulling it over, Takumi finally realized what Ikumi was trying to say.
The cauliflower preparation instructions were strange because the result that was listed wasn't the result of the procedure it listed. At best, the vegetable would brown horribly and not look at all like the fluffy white layer on the image of the dish on the card— but it was still how it was written on the card. There was a secondary challenge within the already difficult task that had been set to them: fix the recipe card and find the actual preparation method of this one vegetable and complete it correctly. It didn't seem to be as strict of a requirement as the main concept of the workshop; of the nine vegetables used in the terrine, the cauliflower was probably the most mild tasting layer, and a slight flavor deviation would be expected when a novice to a recipe prepared it. This was a challenge meant to catch out the chefs who would question every single detail if it meant getting closer to perfection.
Takumi wondered if every chef had something like that in their workshops, if there had been a secondary goal provided not to winnow worthy students but to point out the brightest and best to the alumni.
Takumi glanced down at the terrine he was preparing. It was a bit shorter than a traditional baking dish, probably because they were only supposed to present a single cross-section from it, and he'd gotten a perfectly ripe, large cauliflower when picking out produce. It was immediately obvious that the entire cauliflower wouldn't fit, and they'd have chosen the best florets to include anyhow.
He made eye contact with Ikumi, who raised an eyebrow at the conundrum. He bit the inside of his mouth, uncertain of how she'd take his suggestion, before holding his hands up and gesturing for her to break the cauliflower in half.
Ikumi's eyes widened, and she cocked her head to one side. She seemed intrigued but not sure enough to immediately agree.
Takumi glanced at the time they had remaining before going back to the rack of cooking implements and returning with a steamer. He tapped it, held up three fingers, and then pointed at the stove.
This somehow seemed to convince her. Ikumi gestured for him to get back to his terrine preparations as she broke the cauliflower in two and began cooking it. The rest of the terrine was simple enough to finish; Takumi deftly cut asparagus stalks down to size, arranging them in alternating layers along the bottom of the dish in as even a layer as he could manage. He interspersed the prepared okra, taking care to ensure that the middle of the terrine would provide the most picturesque layer to present to the chef.
The next section was to be the cauliflower layer that he and Ikumi were attempting something new on. Takumi consolidated the rest of the prepared vegetables in small bowls around the terrine and wiped any excess oil off of his hands as he nervously waited for the cauliflower from Ikumi. He watched as she removed the florets she'd steamed, drizzled them lightly in olive oil, and popped them onto their own tray and put it in the oven. The pair exchanged an uncertain glance, but when they checked on the finished cauliflower two minutes later, there was no denying that the pre-steamed cauliflower looked nicer and were, in fact, far more enticingly crumbly than the cauliflower prepared exactly as listed on the recipe card.
Ikumi stared at the two trays she had on the stove, eyes darting from the browned cauliflower to the florets they'd prepared more independently. It took her an extra moment to finally make a decision, and she pointed at the nicer looking cauliflower, gesturing for Takumi to arrange it in the terrine.
The final few layers were simple enough to neatly arrange, and Ikumi had a baking pan filled with water ready for Takumi when he finished wrapping the parcel in cabbage leaves and firmly pressed it down with a lid. He put the terrine in the stove with one final rushing sigh, and Ikumi set up a timer for forty-five minutes on their counter so they could check up on it a little bit before it was meant to come out.
Takumi wasn't sure if they were allowed to talk when the cooking was basically done, but he didn't want to test it (and, thankfully, neither did Ikumi). The two students silently began cleaning up their workstation, sweeping vegetable scraps in a bowl and setting it aside to be added to the compost pile Tōtsuki Resort maintained on its loading dock. At some point, they got bored enough to attempt a silent argument over the knives they preferred, though it was hard for Takumi to explain why using a mezzaluna felt so rewarding to use when he couldn't speak, especially when Ikumi rolled her eyes and refused to look at him as he gestured wildly in the air.
Student pairs that didn't have the same stand-off that Takumi and Ikumi had over the cauliflower started bringing up completed terrines while they still had twenty minutes left on their timer. The majority of them presented terrines with browned cauliflower layers, which made something jerk in Takumi's chest, but Kojirō simply gave their dishes derisive looks before trying them and generally determining them "passable, I suppose." Any pairs that turned in terrines with other layers that looked faulty were immediately denied and sent out of the room. The most interesting thing to happen in the line of students was when one person in a pair was expelled while the other was allowed to pass.
"I watched the two of you," Kojirō said as the expelled student protested. "You sat back and allowed him to prepare the whole dish for you. I'm sure you thought of it as a loophole in my instructions, seeing as you wouldn't have to talk if you weren't cooking. What other result did you expect from a task meant to drill into your pitiful brain that this was a collaborative challenge?!"
Takumi noticed the tiny smirk on the other student's face. He didn't seem that cut up over his partner's failure. Takumi wondered if they'd just accidentally paired up together, since it didn't seem like they were too friendly with each other. The student who passed noticed Takumi staring, nodding to him in acknowledgement as he walked back to his place. Ikumi just smirked and quietly giggled at how indignantly pink Takumi turned after being caught. He glared at her for that.
Their terrine was done cooking soon after the interaction, and Takumi breathed out an anticipatory sigh when he saw how perfectly white and cooked their cauliflower layer seemed. Ikumi had taken it upon herself to prepare the sauce for the dish, leaving him to garnish it as accurately to the image they were provided, and he let her carry the plate up to Kojirō for grading.
The chef's eyes flashed with something as he saw their terrine. "Did you follow the recette given to you?" he asked.
"We did," Ikumi said calmly.
"How did you achieve this—" Kojirō stabbed at their cauliflower layer— "by following the exact wording on the card?"
"I've been taught that when cooking cauliflower, it should be steamed for some amount of time to preserve its color," Takumi said. "The recipe didn't say that it had to be cooked in the oven for five minutes. We cooked it for five minutes, as listed on the card: three in a steamer, two in the oven to finish it off."
Kojirō gave them a considering look before humming noncommittally, cutting off a small portion of their terrine, and tasting it. He nodded. "Good enough. You pass. Please return to your station. You may speak with each other, as long as you stay quiet."
Neither Takumi nor Ikumi loudly celebrated their success, simply exchanging grins with each other before bowing and walking back.
"Man, that was rough," Ikumi muttered, sagging on her stool. "I could barely tell what you were trying to say. Did I mess anything up?"
Takumi shrugged. "I would have sauteed the zucchini until it was a bit more golden, but I can't think of anything big that went wrong."
"It would have overcooked in the oven if it was cooked more beforehand," Ikumi pointed out, stretching a cramp out of her hand. "Even I know that."
"Not if you're working at a high enough temperature."
"And what would I know about the temperatures needed to cook vegetables?" she shot back. "They're just much more delicate than steak. It's so boring."
"One would assume that you'd have just as much experience with vegetables as you do with meat seeing as they're always paired together, Mito-san," someone said from next to them. The pair turned to see who had joined their conversation to see the boy whose partner had gotten expelled. Takumi had seen him around before: complexion almost as dark as Ikumi's, hair a silvery tone rather than her bleached-blonde and far less curly, green-grey eyes that studied the two of them as they bickered. He was one of the other few students who showed up to morning lectures every now and then, and more often than not Takumi saw him with an old-looking cinnamon stick.
"Shut up, Hayama-san," Ikumi snapped at him. "Just because I technically know how to cook a plant doesn't mean that I want to learn more about it. We're not all as obsessed with leaves and twigs and whatever else you get up to in that greenhouse of yours."
The boy smirked at her aggravation. "You weren't saying that when you asked me for my opinion on a dry rub mix two weeks ago."
Ikumi waved his words off. "You were useful then. Not anymore."
"You wound me."
"Did you really prepare the whole dish by yourself?" Takumi interjected. "Didn't your partner at least attempt to help?"
Akira snorted, pulling a stool over to sit with them. "He took one look at the recipe and assumed that I would already know how to make something like it," he said. "I guess my reputation precedes me."
"How annoying," Ikumi said. "Can't believe he thought he'd get away with it."
"Probably thought Chef Shinomiya would take the completed dish as credit for both of us." Akira shrugged. "Plenty of our classmates are stupid enough to think that their 'managerial skills' make them good cooks."
"What managerial skills?" Takumi wanted to know.
Akira smirked. "Exactly."
"Alright, time's up!" Kojirō snapped out. "If you haven't submitted anything, get out. The rest of you, back to your bus."
The students quickly hurried back to the parking lot, but when they got there, Akira gave Ikumi a look that made her roll her eyes and wander to a different seat. Before Takumi could ask, Akira sat down beside him.
"Aldini-san, listen carefully," he said quietly, his eyes darting around. "How familiar are you with Japan?"
Takumi blinked. "I mean, I grew up on my parents' stories of it," he said uncertainly. "I think I have a set of grandparents out here, too, but it's not like we visited. This is my first time living here, if that's what you're asking."
"Right. That's about what I figured." Akira blew out a sigh. "I just wanted to warn you, I guess. This country is…" He hesitated. "Tricky, at best."
"What do you mean?"
"I want you to look at our classmates in the row diagonal from us."
Takumi flickered his gaze towards the seat Akira pointed out. A girl and a boy who Takumi hadn't met were openly staring at the two of them, whispering loudly to each other in harsh tones. As he watched, the boy's eyes narrowed and he scoffed at them.
"They seem like jerks," Takumi commented.
"I'll bet you anything that they're talking about how we're foreigners."
Something about how Akira spat out his last word made the skin along Takumi's back crawl. "Does it really matter that much?"
"To people as Japanese as them, as well as most of the people around us?" Akira glowered out the window. "Yes. It does. A lot. I've lived in this country for basically as long as I can remember and they still think that I'm just some street urchin from a marketplace in India. They think my successes are flukes and my failures are expected. Of course the foreigner doesn't know how to properly steam rice or whatever they think was my downfall." He glanced towards Takumi. "That'll happen to you, too."
Takumi swallowed past the lump in his throat.
"To some Japanese, you'll be little more than a marvel. Look at the gaijin who made it to Tōtsuki. Look at how he dances for us. To others, you'll be a pest, a mockery of the polished, perfect reputations of the alumni that Tōtsuki pumps out." Akira's expression darkened. "With any luck, you'll just be scrutinized far more closely than a kid who had the fortune of being born in Tokyo to two parents who were born in the same hospital decades prior. More likely, you'll have judges gawk whenever you deign to cook something that isn't pasta or pizza. You'll have adults marvel at how good your non-Italian cooking is, for someone so obviously non-Japanese. I bet there are some people who are thinking of befriending you just to laugh at how foreign you act."
"Why are you telling me this?" Takumi asked.
"Call it pity. Or sympathy, I suppose," Akira said, tapping the side of his nose. "The face of Tōtsuki is changing; Nakiri-senpai is hafu herself, and even though Kurokiba-senpai has a Japanese name, the Nakiri family found him on the streets of Denmark. They're succeeding in spite of what people say behind their backs. Even in our class, Mito-san is loudly and vocally the next head of her family industry, even though there are detractors who would spurn her mother. The only way to play their game is to win it so effortlessly that they'll have to accept us."
"It's an 'us' and 'them' now, is it?"
"It's always been." The bus swerved into a parking spot, and kids were already standing and shouting to each other. "Just think about it, Aldini-san. Even when we face each other in the future, remember that we both have to work to stand above the rest of the rabble just for the right to exist."
Akira vanished into the crowd of students heading back to the Resort before Takumi could ask him anything else, and Ikumi neatly slotted herself in the empty spot he left.
"He gave you the whole 'the world isn't made for us' speech, didn't he?" she asked in a deadpan.
"It sounded quite serious."
"That's just Hayama-san." Ikumi shrugged. "I get it, I suppose. He's got his entire found-orphan thing going on, which probably skews his perspective a lot. I'm not going to downplay what he said because it's all true; it's just that he can get pretty intense about it sometimes. You might get some weird looks, but you'll be fine overall."
"And Hayama-san won't…?"
Ikumi glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before looking back to the Resort building. "Hayama-san came into Tōtsuki with a predetermined tragic backstory," she said flatly. "'Prodigy street kid discovered by one of Tōtsuki's brilliant professors, raised in a competitive environment with nothing stopping him from excelling'. I don't think he'll ever be able to outrun that, and he knows that too. I think he'd prefer to have had a normal childhood and be judged on his merits and not on how he's 'overcome all of his obstacles' or whatever."
There was still something bothering Takumi. "He wasn't altogether wrong about the foreigner thing though, was he? I've been getting weird looks ever since arriving in Japan and people keep staring at my hair. Even you stopped yourself from using katakana to communicate with me earlier."
"Oh my god, you didn't overthink that, did you?" She rolled her eyes. "I was worried that Chef Shinomiya would take it as a restricted form of communication and expel us. I wasn't thinking 'the hakujin won't understand simple katakana' or anything like that. It'd be pretty backwards of me to act like that."
Takumi stayed silent.
Ikumi walked a few more steps before sighing. "... that instinct isn't misplaced, though. I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression that I'd be like that."
"No, I'm sorry I assumed it from you," Takumi muttered.
The two exchanged one last uncomfortable look before simultaneously and silently deciding to let it lie.
"Thank you for coming, Yukihira-kun."
Sōma quirked an eyebrow. "Did I have the option not to?"
Gin laughed at his insolence. "I'm sure Jōichirō would have congratulated you for it."
"What Pops doesn't know doesn't hurt him." Sōma leaned against the wall, disregarding the chair set in front of Gin's desk. "Did you need something, Dōjima-senpai?"
"What do you think of the first-years this year?"
Sōma paused before dramatically collapsing in the chair he had previously ignored. "So we're having this talk, then," he grumbled.
Gin laughed. "I already have instructors salivating at the concept of just inviting the students to their restaurants, and we're just barely halfway done with the week," he said. "I'm sure the Ten this year have their eyes out as well."
"I guess," Sōma said, gesturing vaguely. "A handful of them are being trained by Elites right now: Erina, of course, but Mito-chan, Ibusaki-kun, Akanegakubo-chan, and Hayama-kun are all being tutored themselves. I don't know if there are any alumni this time around with prospects that would attract them, though; I can easily see their mentors pushing them to stay at Tōtsuki for the summer to prepare for the Autumn Election."
"Mm. That makes sense." Gin flipped through a manila folder filled with student profiles. "Sekimori-san found out there was a sushi chef in this generation of students. Do you have any thoughts on him?"
"That's Saitō-kun, right?" Sōma scratched the back of his head. "Intense kid, walks around with that giant knife of his. He seems a bit cocky at times— might rub up against Sekimori-senpai's style— but he's good at what he does. I'm sure he'd learn more at Ginza Hinowa than at his family stall, but he'll need some convincing to go."
"That makes sense, from what this profile says. Oh, Inui-san wanted me to ask if Tadokoro-chan would be willing to spend part of her summer at Kirinoya. I'm sure Shinomiya-san would be equally open to her spending some time at Shino's as well, since he's focused on adding a location in Tokyo right now."
"Is he? That must be exciting for Shinomiya-shisō," Sōma said with a smirk. "I'll pass it on to her. I don't think Megumi mentioned making any plans yet, so she'll probably drop by them both."
"I'm sure their rivalry can handle that," Gin said drily. "Gotōda-san didn't have a particular student in mind, but he did say Auberge Tesoro was open to anyone you recommended."
Sōma gave the thought a second before sighing. "I can't really think of anyone currently in Tōtsuki who would benefit from that," he admitted. "Maybe Arato-chan? It's a tiny bit of a reach, but she might enjoy it. If Gotōda-senpai has new dishes he wants to test, he could ask Kobayashi-san to come by, I suppose?"
Gin chuckled. "I'll let him know. Her enthusiasm is contagious, at least." He paused over a sheet of paper, grinning to himself as he carefully extracted the profile from a pile. "What can you tell me about Aldini Takumi?"
"Oh, is he standing out here?" Sōma said idly. "Italian kid, family runs a trattoria near Florence. A bit more anxious than the rest of his classmates, but seems good enough at what he does. He has a twin brother who stayed in Italy to learn hands-on at their restaurant while he came to Tōtsuki to 'refine his techniques' or whatever he's been telling his classmates. Did you need anything else?"
"Would you call him particularly well-traveled?" Gin asked mildly.
Sōma screwed his face up. "Not really," he admitted. "He's a kid who spent his life behind the counter of a diner. That life doesn't really promote travel."
"Well, we might have a strong proposition for him, then."
It was Takumi's turn to prepare dinner for Polar Star's inhabitants, which he had almost forgotten about if it weren't for Shun poking him an hour beforehand and reminding him. It had given him just enough time to whip up some sort of quiche and have it fully cooked before any of their dormmates could start loudly complaining.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this Camp," Yūki ventured after devouring half of her first helping.
"We've been here for three days," Shun pointed out drily.
"And now I know more than I did three days ago." She stubbornly stuck out her chin at him. "How's that?"
Shun didn't reply. Takumi could practically feel him rolling his eyes.
Ikumi casually walked over to where they were eating and set down a surprisingly tame looking katsudon in front of herself. "Glad to see all of you made it through," she commented, poking her egg and happily mixing the soft yolk in with her rice. "So, who do you think will make it to the Election?"
"Ibusaki-san for sure," Ryōko said with a dismissive wave. "Probably Marui-san as well, as long as he doesn't faint on the day of and miss the whole thing. And… I'd wager Aldini-san, as well."
Takumi paused over his own quiche slice. "What is the Autumn Election, anyways?"
Silence fell over the Polar Star group. A few seconds later, it was broken by Ikumi's sharp bark of laughter. "Did you rejects really forget to explain how this school works to the poor transfer student?" she asked.
"W-well, Aldini-san doesn't really stand out as a transfer, does he?!" Yūki sputtered in response. "He's one of us now! It's like he's been here the whole time!"
"The Autumn Election is the next big event for first-year students," Shun explained as Ikumi needled the rest of Polar Star into an embarrassed frenzy. "The top sixty students are chosen both by alumni who came to work this Training Camp as well as by the Elite Ten. On the first day of the Election, those sixty students cook to earn up to a hundred points across five judges. The eight top-scoring students then move onto the actual Election, which is run in a tournament style. The winner is acknowledged as the first-year student with the most potential, and every student who competed on the second day is regarded as a frontrunner of their year. The Factions tend to recruit from top-scoring students; it's not a requirement by any means, but scoring at least seventy-five points in the Election is the best way to improve your chances of being chosen for one."
"So, it's like a schoolwide contest?" Takumi asked.
"It's as close to that as you can get," Shun said. "For context, those of us with Elite Ten mentors are expected to score high enough to make it to quarterfinals; it'll be an upset if we didn't make it in."
Takumi barely heard Shun's final few words. He suddenly remembered a conversation with Sōma just the week prior, where the upperclassman had said he'd be watching the finals of the Election. The finals, nothing else.
Ibusaki-san has to make it to the second day to prove himself. I have to make it all the way to the end. Something akin to panic, anxiety, and, somehow, feral excitement began to swirl in his core. The Autumn Election finals…
"We do have to get through this Camp first, though," Shun reminded him. "Let's focus on that."
"Ah— right, right."
Quick translation key: gaijin is a catch-all term for 'foreigner' while hakujin specifies 'white person/foreigner'. I have no idea if that's how cauliflower actually works, but the only times I've ever just stuck it in the stove it's been breaded so I assume it sort of browns and shrivels a bit.
Time for big statements. I don't live in Japan and I don't know firsthand their treatment of foreigners, but I am a person of color living in America. From what I know, white Americans tend to be a bit more outspoken about racial differences than people in Japan, but personally I find myself gravitating towards other people of color in spaces where I can. I'm drawing on that for this version of Akira, who saw another person who proved skillful enough that his ethnicity could be overlooked and decided to at least try to reach out to him. It's a bit more of a nuanced take than in Shokugeki canon, but I wanted to give Akira a reason to establish a friendly rivalry and I think this is cogent enough motivation. It's not going to really come up too much; Akira isn't just a guy who's upset that Japanese society looks down on him, and I want to develop him into a rounded out character. It simply gives him a reason to care about Takumi and his success as opposed to the nonchalant attitude he had towards Sōma canonically.
Thank you all for your continued support! This story is getting to be much longer and more developed than I originally anticipated; I hope you're still enjoying it :)
